5 ms·

So do I. The one at the 7-11 near my office is busy. Always surprises me.

by Wistar 2y ago

kennethrc 2y ago
> Always surprises me. I think that's "HN Bubble" talking, though. I see a lot of older and arguably poorer people using RedBoxes; after all, streaming is more expensive.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  That’s doesn’t make any sense. It’s $2.25/night/movie. In what universe is that cheaper than a $10/month subscription for thousands of movies?
  - MBCook 2y ago
    Terrible internet? You watch a movie once a month max or less? You find it less confusing the the stream service mess where movies are constantly moving around and the interface changes all the time so you can never find what you were looking for once you do finally learn it?
  - technofiend 2y ago
    That's presumptive on having Internet at all, but even so people make poor economic decisions all the time. Think of title loan and paycheck loan places, grocery shopping at the dollar store. You get the idea. And the fact that at times movies can be released to dvd before they're released to streaming. For that matter even if it's available to stream it may not be available to stream on your service. Does you no good that Suits is currently on Netflix if you're a Hulu subscriber.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - hash872 2y ago
    People in rural parts of the country don't have fast-enough Internet to stream Netflix. At least not without it being unacceptably choppy
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    People who don't watch more than 4 movies a month? There's quite a lot of those.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      Not exactly a brilliant customer base to target. It's like starting a publishing company for people not interested in reading.
      - MBCook 2y ago
        If Bob watches one movie a month, you won’t have a good business. If there are thousands of Bobs in one area, you can do just fine. Meanwhile no streaming service will ever get Bob to sign up. As an silly example: no one rents carpet cleaners every weekend, you can still rent carpet cleaning machines. There is enough demand in aggregate for it to be viable.
        TylerE 2y ago
        That "if" is doing a ton of work there, and even if we grant it, you've got physical costs that scale with the number of locations, which doesn't apply to streaming.
        MBCook 2y ago
        True. But it’s not like Redbox is launching the kiosks today, that’s already sunk cost because they’ve made them all. Sure they need repair and stuff but they’re basically vending machines so I’m guessing there’s somewhat sturdy. And loading new movies in/taking old ones out could be done by the employees of the stores they are located in as part of the placement agreement. Could you start a Redbox from scratch? I kind of doubt it. I think the costs would overwhelm you. But that’s not the position they’re in. I’m not saying you’re going to become a fortune 500 company on the business model. But I think there’s enough for a real business to survive there, depending on the areas where you place the kiosks. However Redbox has history and the agreements may not be as favorable to them as they would need to keep operating, or they may have a lot more debt than necessary. There are a lot of Bobs out there though. It’s not a big theoretical.
  - zerocrates 2y ago
    For one, Redbox has (or had) coupons and codes and stuff like that all the time where you can get free/reduced nights. They used to be one of the T-Mobile Tuesdays offers quite often, for example. For another, it used to be the case that Redbox would have things well before you could stream them, or when they could only be streamed expensively. Various waves of the distributors making it more annoying for Redbox to buy the discs, pushing things to their own streaming services very early, and just generally the downturn of physical video media all blunted those positives though. I used to use it semi-regularly for Blu-rays even not that long ago, but the kiosks around me have started to go away and the available selection and timing of releases is way worse than it used to be. They really just have everything working against them: the ongoing huge shift to streaming, the pandemic and strikes putting holes in the release calendar, Marvel and DC both stumbling, interest rates...
    - MBCook 2y ago
      Great points. Also they used to have video games, I don’t know if they still do. That was a very big differentiator.

So do I. The one at the 7-11 near my office is busy. Always surprises me.

by Wistar 2y ago

So do I. The one at the 7-11 near my office is busy. Always surprises me.

> Always surprises me. I think that's "HN Bubble" talking, though. I see a lot of older and arguably poorer people using RedBoxes; after all, streaming is more expensive.

dyauspitr 2y ago
That’s doesn’t make any sense. It’s $2.25/night/movie. In what universe is that cheaper than a $10/month subscription for thousands of movies?
- MBCook 2y ago
  Terrible internet? You watch a movie once a month max or less? You find it less confusing the the stream service mess where movies are constantly moving around and the interface changes all the time so you can never find what you were looking for once you do finally learn it?
- technofiend 2y ago
  That's presumptive on having Internet at all, but even so people make poor economic decisions all the time. Think of title loan and paycheck loan places, grocery shopping at the dollar store. You get the idea. And the fact that at times movies can be released to dvd before they're released to streaming. For that matter even if it's available to stream it may not be available to stream on your service. Does you no good that Suits is currently on Netflix if you're a Hulu subscriber.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hash872 2y ago
  People in rural parts of the country don't have fast-enough Internet to stream Netflix. At least not without it being unacceptably choppy
- JohnFen 2y ago
  People who don't watch more than 4 movies a month? There's quite a lot of those.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    Not exactly a brilliant customer base to target. It's like starting a publishing company for people not interested in reading.
    - MBCook 2y ago
      If Bob watches one movie a month, you won’t have a good business. If there are thousands of Bobs in one area, you can do just fine. Meanwhile no streaming service will ever get Bob to sign up. As an silly example: no one rents carpet cleaners every weekend, you can still rent carpet cleaning machines. There is enough demand in aggregate for it to be viable.
      - TylerE 2y ago
        That "if" is doing a ton of work there, and even if we grant it, you've got physical costs that scale with the number of locations, which doesn't apply to streaming.
        MBCook 2y ago
        True. But it’s not like Redbox is launching the kiosks today, that’s already sunk cost because they’ve made them all. Sure they need repair and stuff but they’re basically vending machines so I’m guessing there’s somewhat sturdy. And loading new movies in/taking old ones out could be done by the employees of the stores they are located in as part of the placement agreement. Could you start a Redbox from scratch? I kind of doubt it. I think the costs would overwhelm you. But that’s not the position they’re in. I’m not saying you’re going to become a fortune 500 company on the business model. But I think there’s enough for a real business to survive there, depending on the areas where you place the kiosks. However Redbox has history and the agreements may not be as favorable to them as they would need to keep operating, or they may have a lot more debt than necessary. There are a lot of Bobs out there though. It’s not a big theoretical.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  For one, Redbox has (or had) coupons and codes and stuff like that all the time where you can get free/reduced nights. They used to be one of the T-Mobile Tuesdays offers quite often, for example. For another, it used to be the case that Redbox would have things well before you could stream them, or when they could only be streamed expensively. Various waves of the distributors making it more annoying for Redbox to buy the discs, pushing things to their own streaming services very early, and just generally the downturn of physical video media all blunted those positives though. I used to use it semi-regularly for Blu-rays even not that long ago, but the kiosks around me have started to go away and the available selection and timing of releases is way worse than it used to be. They really just have everything working against them: the ongoing huge shift to streaming, the pandemic and strikes putting holes in the release calendar, Marvel and DC both stumbling, interest rates...
  - MBCook 2y ago
    Great points. Also they used to have video games, I don’t know if they still do. That was a very big differentiator.